Tranquillity recollected in chaos
Anne Applebaum
THE VIEW FROM THE KREMLIN by Boris Yeltsin HarperCollins, £18, pp. 316 Of the many peculiar things about this autobiography, not the least peculiar is the fact that it was written at all. Not many statesmen, when still in office, have the time to reminisce about their childhoods, their plane crashes in Spain, their fondness for tennis and steam baths. Boris Yeltsin, whose problems are somewhat greater than those faced by most world leaders, does seem to have had the time, and these are not stories that any ghostwriter could have invented. How was it done? Moscow rumour has it that this book was 'written' in the early hours of the morning: whenever the Russian president had insomnia, that is, he would ring up a young assistant, who would rush over to the Kremlin and scrib- ble furiously while Yeltsin spoke until dawn.
If true, this story might help explain what happened to Boris Yeltsin in the dead months between his victory in the Russian presidential referendum and the moment of his victory against coup-plotters in the Russian parliament, as well as where he has been since then. Perhaps, after all, the Russian president is not drunk when he periodically fails to show any leadership or charisma or even presence for months on end, nor is he ill: he is merely depressed, in the Churchillian manner, and can't get to sleep.
Yeltsin's depression, manic or otherwise, might also be responsible for the unusual, subdued tone of this book. Throughout, Yeltsin seems tired, lonely, and above all overwhelmed by the impossible task of fixing Russia. After being elected speaker of the parliament in 1990, Yeltsin, excited by his shiny office, suddenly stops in his tracks. 'After all,' he thinks, 'we haven't just seized an office. We have seized an entire Russia. Even I was frightened by that subversive thought.' Later, at the start of his first economic reforms, Yeltsin expe- riences 'the debilitating bouts of depres- sion, the insomnia and headaches in the middle of the night, the grave second thoughts, the tears and despair' of a man Who doubts the wisdom of his own policies.
This sense of Russian inadequacy only deepens when Yeltsin observes or visits the West, a mirror in which he sees reflected all of Russia's faults. He marvels that despite the 'harsh words' they exchanged during the 1992 election campaign, Bush and Clinton remained able to speak on the telephone and consult with one another afterwards: 'in our country, they would have remained mortal enemies for the rest of their lives.' At Camp David, he is even more impressed when Dick Cheney asks 'Jimmy' (James Baker) to pour him a glass of juice. 'Jimmy', dressed in a jacket with leather patches on the elbows, gets up and complies, 'in an absolutely relaxed and nat- ural way'. 'In our country', Yeltsin notes, 'we would have definitely had a young man in a tuxedo and bow tie serving, the bosses would have been sitting formally in their seats.'
Instinctively, Yeltsin understands much of what is wrong with Russia — from the absence of true democratic traditions, to the over-formal, over-stylised manners of the ruling class, to the 'semi-free, semi- impoverished' nature of Russian life. Long before anyone in the West (including, by his account, Margaret Thatcher) under- stood that the Soviet empire was finished, and would have to be replaced by real nation-states, Yeltsin knew it. He claims to remain convinced that the non-Russian republics also deserve full independence, and frequently refers to the Soviet Union as the 'former empire'. His instincts for economic reform are also excellent; what he really wants to see in Russia is the re- emergence of 'the sturdy Russian peasant who does not expect anyone else to help him and does not rely on anyone'. Perhaps this is not surprising, given that Boris Yeltsin himself is the son of a sturdy Rus- sian peasant who was jailed by Stalin in the 1930s, an event he describes with much (believable) emotional detail. Yet, like a child in a fairy tale cursed by a witch, Yeltsin has been granted the knowledge that things are not right in Russia, but not the confidence to fix them. Much of this book is about the process of gaining power: there are struggles with Gorbachev, struggles with Alexander Rut- skoi and Ruslan Khasbulatov, struggles with the Russian mafia. Very little of this book is about the process of exercising power. There is a telling moment early on, when Yeltsin, who was losing his battle with Gorbachev at the time, was expelled from the Politburo and wound up in the construction ministry. 'Few people know what torture it is to sit in the dread silence of an office, in a complete vacuum, subcon- sciously waiting for something,' writes Yeltsin. Yet this was 1988, the heyday, as he puts it, of perestroika. Was there really nothing worthwhile he could do? Were there no institutional reforms worth carry- ing out, even at a low level? Couldn't he at least attempt to have his useless ministry liquidated?
When, after much to-ing and fro-ing, Yeltsin finally becomes president, the problem of knowing what to do in one's empty office actually seems to grow worse. Well aware that he knows nothing about economics, Yeltsin first employs Yegor Gaidar, a young, arrogant liberal economist, to run the reforms for him — a quick solution, he thinks. But Gaidar's programmes fail to come to fruition immediately. Yeltsin, uninterested by the reasons for this failure, tries to stop infla- tion by forcing Russians to change all their old banknotes into new ones. When this doesn't work, he begins to indulge in various sorts of compromise. When that doesn't work either, he will, it seems, be left back where he started.
This book is designed as an answer to Yeltsin's critics, particularly those who accuse him of dictatorial intent, and he does succeed in conveying an authentic desire to do good. But it makes for frustrating reading. In the book's penulti- mate paragraph, Yeltsin writes that
I am not presenting people with a global strategic goal. I am not setting my sights on some shining peak that must be scaled. Nor am I trying to wipe out the entire path tra- versed until now. No. The chief goal of this restless president is Russia's tranquillity.
One desperately wants to turn the page, in order to find out how this tranquillity will be achieved. Perhaps there will be a sequel.
Previous page
